Appeals Court Rules In Worcester Death Penalty Case

SNOW HILL — A Baltimore man sentenced to die in Worcester County Circuit Court three decades ago for a gruesome double murder in Baltimore County in 1983 may have finally exhausted his appeals after a Maryland high court this week upheld the lower court’s ruling in on his motion on a bid for a new trial.

The Maryland Court of Special Appeals this week denied the latest appeal of Vernon Lee Evans, who was found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder by a Worcester County Circuit Court jury in 1984 and sentenced to death. Evans was indicted on two counts of first-degree murder for the shooting death of two victims in a murder-for-hire plot in a Baltimore County hotel in 1983, and when the state announced it would seek the death penalty, Evans requested a change of venue and the high profile case was transferred to the Worcester County Circuit Court in quiet Snow Hill in 1984.

According to court documents, Evans was hired by noted drug kingpin Anthony Grandison to kill David Piechowicz and his wife Cheryl, who were set to testify against Grandison a week later in a federal narcotics trial. Evans went to the Warren House Motel in Baltimore County where Piechowicz and his wife worked and shot and killed David Piechowicz and who he thought was Cheryl Piechowicz. However, never having seen his targets before, Evans did shoot David Piechowicz, but also his sister-in-law Susan Kennedy, who was filling in for her sister. According to court documents, Evans shot the two victims with a machine pistol, firing 19 rounds.

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